THE HISTORY OF THE FIELD IN A DOZEN PROBLEMS WHEN THE 'FIRST' IS TOO GLORIOUS

WHAT COULD be more British than chuntering about the tail end of an Indian summer while striding through golden fields of stubble in pursuit of early-season partridges?

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Sweltering back-to-school weather delivers guns in the south a fresh raft of problems, from ensuring dogs don't work themselves into exhaustion to certifying that their own cheeks are well sunscreened to avoid undesired rosiness. If September proves unusually warm, guns are forced to choose whether to risk a perceived breach of sartorial propriety by removing their shooting jacket, and exposing their naked shirt sleeves, or stoically face the prospect of eventual desiccation. Jettisoning jackets in even the tropically humid environments presented by reeling balls and regimental dinners is strictly verboten but is it also a capital offence on peg or while shuffling up post-harvest field margins?

One perplexed commentator in an 1890 issue of